Damien2904

Lovely detail… I haven’t been able to get out & see this sunspot yet

Amazing images!

Hello everyone, I hope you can help me, I'm just getting started with Deep Sky imaging from scratch and recently I've been practising using my Canon EOS 5D Mark III with my scopes. At first I tried using my SW SkyMax 180PRO as it was the only scope I had at the time (I'm aware that this scope isn't ideal for Deep Sky), and after taking various images I noticed that the images were coming back with a dark circle around the centre. I've very recently purchased the SW Evostar 80ED PRO with a .85x reducer, I did a couple test shots using the Canon & noticed the same thing but further out. Originally I thought this maybe my dew shield on the SkyMAX, or possibly the telescope barrel...but when practising DSS I noticed that stars are appearing outside the dark circle so presume it can't be either of those things. Is this vignetting? Ultimately...can I stop this happening? I've included some images for you to see what I'm referring to... SkyMAX images Evostar 80ED - image of Vega on a night with lots of high cloud looking in a heavily light polluted direction. Please let me know if you know what's happening here. Thanks for reading. Damien 🙂

Thank you Pete. Unexpectedly I had an evening out with my scope last night even though the forecast was terrible, but to my surprise it was fairly clear-ish most of the evening apart from the occasional passing high cloud. Below is my second attempt at Uranus, not amazing but it's all practise for me, I'm quite chuffed. First two are without using a barlow lens, the last is with a barlow lens.

Unfortunately when I used the IR pass filter I hadn't focused correctly, so when I processed them there wasn't much point going any further. Other than resizing the images for this post, I think I took them using different ROI settings in FireCapture - this was my first attempt at Uranus so after finding it, spending ages trying to get the best focus, it was probably one thing I forgot to change from the standard settings on the Uranus profile. Thanks for the info vlaiv

Morning all, I thought I'd share some of my recent images of the outer planets, all taken throughout October. I'm only just getting started with Uranus & Neptune...so be gentle. I'm quite pleased that their colour has pulled through more than anything at the moment, however I'm hoping to concentrate more on focusing next time, but as I'm sure you all know....it is surprisingly difficult! 🥴 Photos taken using my SkyMax 180, ADC corrector (for Jupiter & Saturn), ZWO ASI224MC & Baader IR/UV cut filter. I've been trying out my IR Pass filter for Uranus & Neptune but I'm not having much luck yet, probably something I'm doing wrong somewhere. Damien - with Io

Great selection of photos Reggie Love the conjunction photos, Neptune has come out so clear against the other planets, and yes you can see the blue hue. Fantastic. I've only made one attempt at Neptune so far, a combination of it being overshadowed by Jupiter/Saturn and that the summer weather here has been so dreadful. Here's a couple photos of my first attempt last week using my ASI224MC, in the second photo if I remember right, I used a barlow & overexposed on purpose to pick out Triton. Not the best I know, but it was just a trial. My Crayford Focuser came through the post yesterday for my 180Pro, so I'm hoping to link that up & get out tonight if the weather holds. Damien 🪐

Wonderful image Peter

Evening all, Just wanted to say thank you all for the advise you have given me, I've been putting it to good use. Below is an animation I made today of last nights Io transit, unfortunately due to the timing & a tree in my neighbours garden I only got the lead up & beginning of the transit. Gutted I couldn't go further as it was quite good seeing conditions. By the time Jupiter reappeared from behind the tree, Io had already moved on. Hey ho...next time. Jupiter - Io.mp4

Thanks everyone for your comments & guidance. Last night after work I noted down everything advised and gave it a go, albeit there was a lot of high cloud around. I didn't have much luck with Saturn...using FireCapture I set the Exposure to 5.9ms, Gain 353 & Gamma 50(off), the planet was extremely dim on the screen however visible enough to make out where it was....so I captured a number of videos, however when heading to PIPP, it was unable to pick out the planet...and even after increasing the object detection threshold. Saturn disappeared after that (TREES!!!! ), so I had no time to make any adjustments. I moved to Jupiter (which was very watery in the sky).... FireCapture : Exp=30.1, Gain=353, Gamma=50(off) PIPP : selected 50% of frames (I took 3mins worth, about 5,000 frames) AutoStak : Analysed & selected 25% of frames...Norm Stack 90%, Sharpened Blend RAW 50%, Drizzle off, Auto AP to 48 & stacked. Registax : Dyadic, Gaussain, Wavelet layer 1 (100), 2 (27.5) with slight sharpen & denoise, RGB balanced & in the histogram chopped down just before RGB lines. Result was this.... 615EB694-3CE8-4147-B6D9-36E9DE554884.tiff I'm quite happy with it even though the weather wasn't great....

Jupiter photos : Exp 80.2 Gain 129 & Gamma 63 - took around 2,000 frames. Saturn photos : Exp 652.9 Gain 111 & Gamma 60 - I believe Saturn was 1,000 frames if lucky Do let me know if you think I should adjust any of these for better results. I seem to still be having a problem where the planets slowly move out of my FOV even though I'm using my AZ EQ5-GT mount ....think I have to read up more about alignment, the scope is obviously not following them correctly, I'd like to get them to stay still but I think I'm missing something, so I'm pausing the captures to adjust the planet back to the centre. I did manage to take this close up of Saturn on Friday night (3 Aug), bit noisy...a but for me it is definitely progress in taking closer shots of Saturn.

Thanks Reggie, great to hear that I'm on the right path. Oh...let me try again, I uploaded the original post from my iPhone so maybe something went wrong...? I'll also include the one I made of the Ganymede transit back mid July. Hope you can see them.... Hoping to maybe catch the Europa transit later tonight, but it's not getting started until quite late & I have work tomorrow. Jupiter Eclipse ZWO.mp4 Jupiter Close Up 04Aug.mp4

Hello, I thought I’d share some photos that I took last night (03Aug) of both Jupiter & Saturn. All taken using my SkyMax 180 Pro & ASI224 MC in FireCapture. Processing after with PIPP, AutoStakkert & Registax for wavelets. I’ve included a small animation of Jupiter…however I think I need to clean my Barlow lens, not sure what the sploge is at the end…🙄 unfortunately I missed the GRS when doing closer shots. Please feel free to post any suggestions about how I can brush up on anything you think I’m doing wrong. Only been doing this a few months so I’m still teaching myself lol. 🤓 IMG_6087.MP4

Thank you both for your replies. 👍 Do I set to record in .ser in ASICap??

Hello, Please can you help, recently I've been using my ZWO ASI224MC camera to capture Jupiter & Saturn. I'm getting a little frustrated that everything I've been capturing seems to be coming out in Black & White, & I can't seem to work out how to take shots in colour. When I'm looking through the laptop at what the camera is viewing in ASICap the display is in colour but it's not until I view on the laptop what it's captured or in SiriL that I then see it's black & white & this is driving me crazy.😖 I'm sure it's something so silly but I'm not too experienced with this yet. Any advice you can give would be appreciated, I can include some screen shots if necessary. Thank you. Damien